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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24447295">Desert Days</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/burnt_august/pseuds/burnt_august'>burnt_august</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Character Death, Friendship, Implied Sexual Content, Major Character Injury, One Shot, Reader-Insert, Romance, War</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 10:07:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>9,623</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24447295</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/burnt_august/pseuds/burnt_august</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“If this war ever ends-- and he assured you that it will eventually-- you’ll tell Sam Wilson you love him.”  </p>
<p>Sam Wilson/Reader</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Riley &amp; Sam Wilson, Sam Wilson (Marvel)/Reader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Desert Days</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Warnings: bad language words, angst for days, extreme injury and death (blood), mentions of PTSD, implied sex</p>
<p>A/N: This is long 9.6k words phew but a real labor of love. I feel like Sam doesn't get enough love!! Very Sam centric.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div class="">
  <p></p>
  <div class="">
    <p>
      <em>2001. </em>
    </p>
  </div>
  <div class="">
    <p>A colossal mountain of mutilated steel and concrete rubble sits, smoking, in the center of the world. Lower Manhattan. Financial District. Eight blocks that makeup ‘Wall Street’, some elusive playpen for the invisible but potent power of ‘stock’. Destroyed. And with it, lives, hopes, and dreams. 2,606 bodies buried there in the debris. An illusion of invincibility crushed in too. In the flames that lick at ruins of the Twin Towers, an Indian summer. The warm September haze forcefully burrows itself in the guts of New Yorkers, Americans, the world. It’s fear, not flush. It’s anger. </p>
  </div>
  <div class="">
    <p>How could this happen? <em>To us?</em></p>
  </div>
</div><div class="">
  <p>The news outlets evoke the memory of a vastly different war. They call it a day that will live in infamy. Which, it will. Undoubtedly. Yet, it’s hardly the same as Pearl Harbor. Perhaps, the only thing comparable, but dissimilar all the same. Since the greatest generation created generations of their own, the pastime of waging war happened elsewhere. On<em> other</em> lands. In <em>other </em>homes. To <em>other</em> people. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>September 11th, 2001 burst the bubble of willful ignorance. War is happening. And there is a debt to be paid for crimes. <em>All </em>crimes. Even American. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Sam Wilson is only twenty when it happens-- </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>--waking up next to a girl from English class that he’d been playing footsie with in the library the day before. Her cellphone, pink and bejeweled, rings at 7 am drawing them both from slumber. Sam rubs the hangover from his temple as she unwinds her limbs from his, both sticky with sweat. Through tears, she turns and tells him. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Four planes hijacked. Two crashed into the World Trade Center. One at the Pentagon. Another in a Pennsylvania field.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Sam’s from New York City. Harlem. He’s stood at the bottom of those towers before-- a kid with a skateboard carving lines over all five boroughs. But he hasn’t been back to the East Coast in years. No reason to. Mom was laid to rest next to Pops and Sam ran away to the other side of the country not long after. The news isn’t any less devastating.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He’s at UCLA, majoring in Philosophy of all things. It all seems so pointless then. Studying knowledge, reality, existence, when the rest of the world is <em>bleeding</em>. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Everyone is in pain. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Soldiers. Doctors. Accountants. Car Salesmen. Kindergarten Teachers. They demand their pain be spread. They want revenge. They want blood. War is now felt by<em> all</em>.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>In October, the US invades Afghanistan.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Sam enlists in November. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>
    <em>2003.</em>
  </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Superman School” is what it’s called. Sam thinks it should rather be called simply, “Hell”. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Indoc is easy. Sam has always liked the water and it’s just nine weeks of basically swimming. But what follows is two grueling years of vicious emotional and physical exertion. The events, the ache inside that led him there, are practically forgotten when the training starts. In Combat Dive School, he’d panicked the first few times an oxygen tank was strapped to his back and a regulator shoved in his mouth. In Paramedic training, he’d slipped and stabbed his fingers practicing sutures so much that he lost feeling there for a week. During SERE, Sam lost a toenail; that hurt like a motherfucker. It was probably the most physical pain he’d ever been in at the point of his life. The guys, other PJs in training, don’t let that one go for a couple of months. <em>At least. </em></p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>The best part, perhaps the only remotely good part, is Army Airborne and Military Free-fall Parachutist training. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“It’s not exactly flying, but it feels like it,” Sam speaks animatedly into the receiver after chow on a Tuesday night, “It feels like <em>fucking flying </em>and you always imagine that flying is cool but then you do it and, I swear--”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He spends the next fifteen minutes going on and on and when his girlfriend, Lisa from English class with the pink bejeweled phone, finally hangs up, Sam feels like there’s so much he still hasn’t gotten to say about it. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p><strong><em>In a different life, I might’ve been a bird</em></strong>, he says during a poker game later that night. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>They're all chasing their own highs after the first jump, but no one’s as dumb with it, as <em>corny</em> about it as Wilson. They give him shit for it. Sam is too hopped up on finding his first love to care.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>It’s easy to forget why they’re there and what they’re working toward. Graduating. Deployment. <em>War. </em></p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Afghanistan is a long way from Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. But with every day, every training course completed, Sam Wilson closes that gap with <em>flying colors</em>. And eventually, in May of that year, he found himself in Nevada with the 58th Rescue Squadron. Impossibly, closer now to Afghanistan. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>There, he’s given a maroon beret and dubbed a <em>“Guardian Angel”</em>. Small consolation prizes for the news he’s being deployed. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>
    <em>2004.</em>
  </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>It’s hot in Afghanistan, he’s heard. Sam had never expected it to be so bad; it’s summer, everywhere’s hot in the summer. The hottest place on earth is the Lut Desert in Iran. Barren, sparsely vegetated, open scrub. 70.7 Celsius recorded. That’s about 160 Fahrenheit. But nowhere, not even <em>the hottest place on earth</em> is as sweltering as Bagram Airfield in July. With fatigues stuck to his back with sweat, stomach coming up on ‘E’, split red knuckles being bandaged: 40 Celsius feels like <em>5,000 Kelvin</em>. Dry heat with nowhere to go but through him. It adds ten pounds at least to the weight in his shoulders. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Sam made one comment. Just one. But a scathing reply from his least favorite Squadron member was enough to unravel him. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>
    <strong>
      <em>This is the land of your peoples, Wilson, stop bitchin’.</em>
    </strong>
  </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Sam flexes his fingers on his bouncing knees, sitting and waiting stoically; internally, he’s burning. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>When he enlisted just three years ago in a fervent bout of passion and patriotism, he didn’t anticipate the racist pieces of trailer park trash he’s supposed to call brothers. The amount of self-control it would take to <em>not </em>punch the asshole square in the jaw. The <em>fucking </em>heat.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Three years after waking up that fateful morning, turning on the news with Lisa taking calls non-stop, flames and smoke reflected in his brown eyes and he’s stuck waiting in a tent for disciplinary action. At least it’s a reprieve from the merciless Afghanistan sun. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>The tent flaps rustle softly, heavy boots command Sam reflexively to stand at attention. It gets his knee to stop bouncing. It’s in his face when he sees you. The faltering expression in his eyes that he tries to hide behind a stone slate. You’re not his CO there to NJP him, he’s never seen you on the base and he’s sure he would’ve remembered your face had he, but the patch on your chest dominates him anyway. A stray bead of sweat tickles Sam’s temple underneath your blank stare. You’re not, but you look ten feet tall over him. He’s never been someone so easily intimidated, but you? You are formidable. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He wonders which part of you gets to him the most.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>It might be your impossibly straight posture, one that he could never fully get right much to the ire of his commanding officers. Or maybe it’s the sharpness to your eyes, dissecting him piece by piece before he even hears your voice. Or, it could be, that you’re really <em>fucking </em>hot. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p><em>Christ, </em>are you. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>But that last one might be skewed by the fact that he’s been on tour now for a couple of months and his girlfriend, <em>not Lisa, </em>now Kerry, has been giving him blue balls. Sending letters so salacious, they’ve found a home in the john for everyone’s <em>personal</em> use. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He’d remember you if he saw you. He’d never be able to forget. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Another body entering the tent brings a breeze to save him from the downright oppressive warmth of your stare. A man, another Sam has never seen around, stands much more relaxed and close to your side. He’s tall and blonde and somehow pale even after hours spent in the sun. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>You look at him and <em>smile</em>. So nice and pretty without any trace of your previous hardness. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“So, <em>you’re</em> Sam Wilson?” he asks with a hint of a smirk in his voice, “Heard a lot about you.” There’s laughter playing at both of your smiles and Sam’s fists instinctively clench. <em>Are you making fun?</em> He’s not in the mood. It’s hot and sticky, and he might be fighting down an embarrassing and painful semi. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Yes, sir.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>The man at your side laughs, digging his elbow into your side, “You hear that? He called me sir!” </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Fuck off,” you roll your eyes, flicking his ear so hard it draws a hiss. The first words he hears spill from those lips, twisted now in a smirk, don’t match your silvery voice.  </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p><strong><em>Fuck off,</em></strong> so rough and yet said in dulcet tones with affection. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Sam’s hot again when you step forward, away from your partner-- the breeze was only fleeting. <em>Nowhere</em> is as hot as in that tent on Bagram AFB, you, just five feet from him, hand held out with a soft smile to introduce yourself. Warm and sweet, but somehow it burns. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>God, he needs to get laid, <em>like, yesterday</em>. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He didn’t even realize he shook your offered hand until he misses the feel of it as it slips from his own. “And this is Riley, he got dropped on his head as a baby,” straightening beside the man in question, Sam catches an all too short flash of white as you laugh. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“So, what did he say?” Riley asks. At the quirk of Sam’s head to the side, he gestures to the wrapped right hand, “I mean everyone’s talking about it. You’re gonna be on latrine duty for weeks!”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Riley,” you sigh, smacking his chest that shakes in laughter with the back of your hand. A comforting smile when you turn back to Sam, “We have business to do.” The file you hand him, which he had not noticed was in your hand until it was heavy in his, it changes everything. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p><em>Why me? </em>Sam doesn’t let the question slip past his tongue, but it’s there. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>You shrug as if you’d heard him, “You’ve made quite the reputation for yourself, Sam Wilson.” A soothing smile, big and easy. Like the one you sent Riley. He’d like to see it his way again. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>And you’re not lying. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>9 months in Afghanistan and word carries of a PJ falling from the sky like some vengeful archangel of salvation, laying suppressing fire steady as breathing, healing hands flipping the bird at death. Sam Wilson, orphan boy from Harlem, amateur philosopher, provider of quality spank bank material, was <em>made</em> for this.  </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>The first time he sees it, Sam doesn’t know what the hell he’s looking at. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Like a big black horseshoe crab, washed up dead on the shore, metal back shining slick with seawater. Three of them laid out on a table in a hangar removed from the rest of the airbase. Engineers rattle off all sorts of specs, some Sam understands, some he hasn’t the slightest idea the meaning of. He looks to his right, at you, then Riley. The pair of you, grinning at each other, bouncing on the balls of your feet like children. Always so lively with each other. Always overflowing with enthusiasm-- in each other, something you now extend to him. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>All happening so fast. <em>Too fast</em>. Sam’s queasy from the whiplash. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>A month ago, he’d only just gotten used to the cycle: Jump. Find cover. Fire back if need be. Don’t mind the blood. Do what he can. And if he can’t, say a prayer. Swallow his vomit. Back to camp. Brush his teeth. One. Twice. Rinse. Repeat. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>How did the saying go? <em>‘These Things We Do, That Others May Live’</em>. Sam’s swallowed enough of his own vomit that the taste doesn’t even phase him anymore. Partially because he’s scrubbed his tongue raw and numb with toothpaste. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Then, you and Riley ripped him from it. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Bought him dinner in Kabul. Offered him a cold beer. Which, he hadn’t had one in a year and fuck if it wasn’t orgasmic on his tongue. You two wined and dined him, told him he was special, he was meant for more. Made him feel good. Reminded him he wasn’t just some cog, some tool in a war that was quickly losing support. That he had a chance to do something important. <em>Christ</em>, he was surprised there wasn’t a good old fashioned fuck at the end of it. He’d put out on the first date.  </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>EXO-7 Falcon. <em><strong>In a different life, I might’ve been a bird</strong></em>. He maintained a year out that jumps were everything. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>But wings? <em>Actual wings?</em></p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>It’s unbelievable. No. Fucking insane. He can’t fathom it. Not free-falling and convincing himself its as close to flying he’ll ever get, but actually flying without the disappointing fact that eventually, he’ll have to pull the chord. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p><em>It’s just a prototype, don’t blow your load too soon,</em> you laugh, hand on his bicep,<em> for now, we just get to ogle them looking all nice and pretty</em>. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He doesn’t have the balls to tell you he already has. In the showers. Numerous times. Your smile flashing behind his eyelids. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>It’s just a waiting game now for the prototypes to be approved. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Sam finds his stride again, much quicker than the last, in this new routine. He suspects his easy adjustment has everything to do with you and Riley. PT at 0600. Showers at 0800. An emergency non-Falcon rescue mission about two, three times a week. Chow together in the mess at 1730. Sometimes, the three of you eat MREs outside instead, watching the sunset like a bunch of cornballs. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>You guys talk<em> a lot,</em> typically always over a meal. And Sam, who usually speaks a mile a minute, is slowed and forced to take a breath. Between the three of you, the fight for air time is intense. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Everything is learned and shared in that small circle of three, sometimes <em>too </em>much. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>In some sleepy Georgia town, five houses away from each other, you and Riley spent your entire childhoods not meeting until basic.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p><strong><em>Kismet,</em></strong> Riley grinned between mouthfuls of a macaroni and chili MRE that he traded for. That green sucker had no idea what he was getting into with Riley’s <em>chicken a la death</em>. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>The pair of you, southern belles, you’d joked. Attended the same Sunday service, learned how to ride a bike on the same stretch of asphalt, enrolled in the same high school but different years. Riley lost his virginity to your older sister in the back of his dad’s wood-paneled station wagon. You remember she complained about a cum stain on her favorite skirt around that same time. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p><strong><em>Too much?</em></strong> you ask with a widening smirk at Sam’s grimace.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>The two of you are so close, Sam can only be grateful for how easily you’ve let him fall into place by your sides. As welcoming, as kind and as warm as you are, in those early years, Sam can’t help feel an outsider sometimes. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>You and Riley are so <em>so</em> close. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He’s sure he’s only seen you guys separated by bathroom breaks and sleep. An inordinate amount of time side by side. Fond smiles come often and effortlessly. Only ever fully at-ease in each other’s vicinity. You’re left-handed and Riley’s right-handed and your elbows <em>always </em>knock when eating. Which seems purposeful because once, when Sam suggested you just switch your normal places at the table, he was met only with blank stares and shrugs. And when the three of you walk across the airfield together, Sam naturally has to fall back slightly because he’s pretty sure you and Riley are tethered together with an invisible string, footfalls in sync. Your right leg in time with his, strides equal. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He’s not sure he’s met a pair of friends ever more suited to each other.  </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p><strong><em>So, are you guys, like, together?</em></strong> Sam asks Riley hesitantly one night when you’ve gone to speak with some other officers. The pair of them lay on their backs on the rocky ground, gazing up at the clear expanse of stars. The new addition to your little merry band of friends tries to appear casual when asking. But really, it’s been nagging at him for months now. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>It’s a valid question. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>You and Riley are almost abnormally close for two people that have only known each other for a couple of years. Sam’s never seen <em>anyone</em>, not even his disgustingly in love for 30 years parents, so attached. If he were honest, sometimes it’s scary. Uncomfortable. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Mostly, because it’s never been defined. And Sam is, by nature, curious. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Partly, because the things he thinks about you... well, he doubts Riley would appreciate him thinking about his significant other that way. Especially a friend thinking that way. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Riley’s bellowing laugh draws angry hushes from surrounding PJs trying to sleep. He cackles so hard with hands clutching at his abdomen, he practically rolls.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p><strong><em>You’ve got it bad, Wilson,</em></strong> is his only reply before getting up to go take a leak. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>
    <em>2005. </em>
  </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Euphoria. That’s the only word Sam can use to describe it. Like sex. Maybe, even better. Up there, in the clouds, where everyone below are just little black dots, his stomach lurches and flips and folds itself over and under. Actually flying, not free-falling and biding his time until he eventually must pull the chord. He’s shaky with it at first. Like a baby on fresh legs, wobbly and awkward. Even still, he’s <em>fucking </em>flying. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Back on the ground, he and Riley gush with it. <em>Joy. Freedom. Ecstasy. </em></p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>They talk a mile a minute, even though their burning lungs are screaming for them to just breathe. They brush off the medical staff urging them to put on oxygen masks for a few minutes. <strong><em>Can’t,</em></strong> Riley rejects it, <strong><em>too fucking wired. </em></strong></p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>You’re up next, burning with the need to get yours too.  </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>It all moves so fast. Sam and Riley each in one of your ears, telling you how amazing it feels. How much you’re gonna love it. They watch, chests heaving, hands on hips, as you’re strapped in, take your place 50ft away and nod along to all of the instructions given. Giving you pointers like they’ve been doing this for years. You roll your eyes. The pricks only have an hour of experience each. Though that’s an hour more than you have, so you listen despite your pride. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>You fail. And just as everything you do is, you fail brilliantly. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Sam and Riley watch helplessly as you crumble in the clouds, tumbling in the wind, barreling towards the hard rock and sand beneath their boots. The limp wings thrash in the wind, punching sharp welts into your sides. Your blood-curdling scream rips out above, echoing in the valley. They can see you scrambling, panicked brain searching for a fight or flight response. But you can’t do either. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Can’t fly. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Can’t fight the merciless pull of gravity. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>You get ahold of yourself long enough to pull the emergency chute at the lowest possible altitude. A heap of nylon lines and cloth on the ground, your impact striking up a cloud of dust. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Their feet can’t move fast enough, rushing to your side, hearts in their stomachs, and stomachs in their asses. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p><strong><em>Don’t fucking touch me!</em></strong> </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Riley’s hand that gently grabs your bicep swiftly retracts as if you’d burned him. You won’t let them help. You just lie there, forehead pressed into the sand, body shaking with adrenaline, pained wails vibrating behind your grit teeth. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Silence except for the sick sound of your brokenness. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>More than the acid cuts on your palms and cheek. More than a cracked rib. More than the ugly smattering of red and purple that will appear on your torso later. You mourn what is lost in your failure. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Back on the ground, you gush with it. <em>Wrath. Anguish. Woe.</em> </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Sam feels sick beside Riley. Watching you there is the hardest thing he’s ever done. He reminds himself of the careful routine. Don’t mind the blood. Do what he can. And if he can’t, say a prayer. Swallow his vomit. He remembers the taste now. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>The prognosis is: you are a no-fly zone. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>You barely hear the flurry of words thrown at you, in front of you, around corners when you’re not supposed to hear. Cracked rib. Major contusions to the trunk. Sprained wrist. Can’t handle it. Right side too weak. Six weeks recovery, then return to regular duty. <em>Maybe</em>, you can work on it in PT and try again in 6 months. <em>Not likely</em>. Third prototype destroyed. Only two Falcons. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Weren’t supposed to hear that. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>The next few days are eerily quiet. Filled with silent tension, Sam and Riley sending worried glances your way, forcing down winces at your every labored movement. You’ve abruptly walked off at seemingly random points of conversation. You’ve lashed out at Riley when he tries to help a little too much, pushes back against your attitude a little too hard. You’ve retreated. No joking around, no smiling. They have, at least, the clemency to avoid any mention of the Falcon jetpacks in your presence. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>When they train, you avoid it like the plague. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>The crowds they draw. The hooting and hollering cheers of the other PJs as Sam and Riley defy all odds in the air. The time will come soon, for them to employ the EXO-7 Falcons in an actual rescue. You pray that you aren’t healed by the time the first mission comes. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>God, <em>whomever</em>, hears your pleas whispered into the tough canvas of your cot. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Four weeks after your failed flight test, an Apache helicopter goes down in Taliban infested territory. You haven’t been cleared. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Sam walks up on the Chinook, dressed for the first time in his full suit. It would feel so gratifying, had you not been standing there with Riley, heads bowed lowly in short whispers underneath the raucous whirring of the engine. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>You haven’t talked to Sam in more than a few words. Only Riley. You only really talk to Riley. Sam has walked in on an abruptly cut off conversation a few times now. <em>Shut out.</em> It burns at him in the middle of the night, keeps him from drifting off in much-needed slumber. You and Riley are his people now. Confidants. Friends. Comrades. <em>Family</em>. He wants to be there for you both, but you don’t let him. <strong><em>Just, give her time, she’s upset,</em></strong> Riley had supplied a dejected-looking Sam when you stormed away at his advance for the third time. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Now, at his careful approach, you look up and force a tight smile across those lips he sees in his dreams. An awkward, heavy hand on his shoulder that makes his heart clench, <strong><em>Good luck, Wilson</em></strong>. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He’ll still feel it burning through his fatigues hours later. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>When they successfully return with the entire crew safe and sound, the base is alive with celebration. A friendly football scrimmage is thrown together by Riley in amber skies of late afternoon, their focused play-calling set behind 50 cent blaring on the boombox. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>You’re noticeably absent. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Sam stands outside of your barracks with his hands stuffed in his pockets, uncertain if you’ll even speak to him. You haven’t before. Why would you now? When everyone is happily relishing in something you can no longer be a part of. His boots scuff in the sand as he debates leaving. Letting you alone for the night to surely lament in your loss. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Shouldn’t you be out there kicking ass, <em>superstar?”</em></p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Your face, a familiar smile there that he’s been desperate to see for weeks, evokes an overwhelming sense of guilt in his gut. It was you and Riley from the start. Always you and Riley. The two of <em>you</em> had recruited<em> him</em>. And now he’s taken your place and they’ve left you in the dust. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>His return smile comes out more like a grimace without his permission. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>The large tent, usually filled to the brim with airmen stacked atop of each other, is empty. Everyone’s either getting chow or at the makeshift field spectating or playing. It’s just you sitting on a makeshift bed on the ground, softly closing the book you were reading when he entered. Sam doesn’t think the two of you have actually ever been alone together. Not like this. No Riley, no one milling about in the background, no rescue mission. The closest thing might’ve been the first time you met. And even then, you hadn’t said anything to each other until Riley joined. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Honestly,” Sam swallows hard, shaking his head in what looks like a humorous gesture, but really, he’s trying to find his footing again. “How does Riley have <em>so much</em> energy?” </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>You smile wider and his heart, it fucking<em> aches</em>. For you. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Knees pulled up tightly to your chest, ignoring the sharp pangs in your ribs at the action, you tilt your head softly up at him, “It’s all sugar and tai chi.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Sam nods, a ghost of a chuckle humming from his throat. He sits on the ground next to you, knees bent, forearms hung over them. Tries not to make the hitch in his breath known when your thighs brush against each other ever so lightly. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“I’m sorry,” he croaks. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>You shake your head at the ground, sighing deeply in defeat-- as if it would magically ease the pressure in your temples. “I think I forgot, it’s so easy to forget. But I dunno, all this self-pity and for what? Because I don’t get a cool pair of wings?”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“You’re allowed to be upset,” his hand hovers over your back. Half afraid of hurting you, half afraid of you rejecting him. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Eyes like the cosmos lift to his and you lean back to close the distance for him. The press of his palm over your shoulder is warm, his fingers flexing slightly in the contours of your back. Gooseflesh fanning out from where they indent your skin, hidden beneath the fabric of your shirt. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“My last rescue op, that kid whose lower half was blown to shit?” Sam nods solemnly, he remembers. How could he not? “He couldn’t stop crying about how his girlfriend was gonna break up with his dickless ass. And then he broke into a whole other fit because he didn’t have an ass either,” you laugh humorlessly, “I’m alive and in one piece. I’ve got a sweet ass and a fucking elephant trunk of a dick swinging between my legs.” Sam snorts, can’t help the gap-toothed grin that makes his cheeks ache.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>You pause, licking your lips. Sam’s got a smile is like the sun. All warm and bright. The way it feels to bask in its glow, <em>a personal beach day</em>, you don’t think you’ve ever been so content to just be looked at. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“I guess, I just-,” brows furrow, struggling to find the words. “You spend months preparing for something, with your best friends, you’re all excited about it, mostly because you’re doing it together. Me. Riley. <em>You</em>. Demented three musketeers,” you smile sadly, a cracking phantom of a thing Sam has come to <em>love</em>. “And then it all goes to shit. So easily slips through your fingers.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>There are tears that you’ll never let fall, but you trust Sam enough to let him see the way your eyes shine with it. The glossy finish of your glum and how it paints you blue. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“I’ve been with Riley since basic. Never been an op where I haven’t had his back and him mine.” </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>You know. You know you’ll never fly again. No one’s said it outright, but they look at you like a kicked puppy enough for you to get it.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Will you promise me something, Sam?”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Sam. Sam. <em>Sam.</em> He’s heard his name said a million times in a thousand different cadences, but never like that. Never so soft and honeyed and certain. All at the same fucking time. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>
    <em>“Anything.”</em>
  </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“There are going to be ops for just the two of you that the rest of the unit, that <em>I</em> can’t go on. Will you look after Riley?” You’re so close, practically whispering. Sam could count your lashes if he wanted to. “I love him, but he’s a fucking idiot. Just doesn’t think sometimes.” </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Without question. Fervently. For you, <em>“Absolutely.”</em></p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>And you just listen to each other breathe. In and out. So steady and sure. Content in just the sweet sound of each other, living.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>
    <em>2007.</em>
  </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Hands, calloused from fast-roping down from a helo, splayed out on the contours of his shoulders. Hot and urgent, everywhere and nowhere at once. The emotion in them permeates through his skin-- flooding him, filling him to the brim. Had he always been so empty before? Or had that space always been carved out for your touch? Your eyes are above him, searching, pleading. Lashes fluttering down at his face. Lips falling open in soundless utterances, mouthpiece of the gods. Breathless. His ears are ringing, eyes blinking away that white-hot blindness licking at the edges of his consciousness. You’re so beautiful there, rays of sun peeking out behind you, he might pass out.  </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p><strong><em>Wilson, can you hear me?</em></strong>  </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>And then a laugh. Loud and boisterous and <strong><em>Holy shit! You just got your world rocked! </em></strong>Riley beside you, his face a picture of delight, buzzing with adrenaline. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Along with the rapid pops of gunfire and cracks of an AK returning, gentle jingling of hot casings hitting the ground, steady lines of communication running down the line of airmen, <strong><em>Wilson, I need you to confirm that you are okay</em></strong>.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He nods dumbly at your insistence. Remembering suddenly how to breathe when you grab him by the vest and yank him up off the ground. He’d been blown on his back by the sheer force of a screaming mortar impacting the earth nearby. Your smack on his helmet is enough to refocus him, and all attention is back on the vic, packing the wound, applying pressure. You radio in controlled and calm-- GSW to the leg and shoulder, hoist out exfil necessary, popping green smoke on our location. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Helmand is hell. But you grin and bear it so well. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Things have leveled out. The three of you adjust to yet another new routine; much remains the same. The months are filled with morning PT, showers, any and every conversation under the sun shared over chow, a game of Slapjack or Bullshit after the sun’s gone down. Standard combat search-and-rescue, thankfully, for your sake is unchanged. But you have to get used to watching Sam and Riley soar through the sky like it’s what they were born to do. You stick to field medicine when they become something altogether different than PJs. Though, they were never <em>just</em> PJs. And you pretend it doesn’t just ache the tiniest beat when they leave you behind for some confidential mission.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Being the failure is hell. You grin and bear it to keep the pain from spreading to them. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Hours later he finds you pelting the metal floor of the HH-60 Pave Hawk with an unwavering jet stream of water, diluted blood dripping from the sides. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Any special plans for when you get home?” Sam watches your face as it remains focused on lazily hosing down any memory of a bleeding young Corporal laying slack in your helping hands from the bird.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Six weeks. His tour ends in six weeks. He plans on sleeping-- sleeping hard, sleeping in, sleeping around. Riley joked about Sam burying himself in alcohol and puss, <em>‘it’s a toss-up which addicts anonymous circle he’ll end up in’</em>. Sam laughed and cheered in good fun, but the scent of JP-8 stung his nostrils. You and Riley have three more months left in this tour. Sam doesn’t like to think about the fact that he’ll be home, smelling apple pie and boob sweat, and you’ll be stuck here, sniffing jet fuel; that’s the smell of freedom, airmen say. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Might take up yoga,” he quips. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Your eyebrows raise slightly, lips spreading into an easy and knowing smile, “Bet you would, you horndog.” Yoga pants, nylon and lycra second skins that hold everything just so, are all the rage all of the sudden. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Sam laughs, leaning against the side of the helicopter with a cheeky smirk. That smirk you know so well now after three years. You count on that smirk. Pray on it. How something so small can bring you so much comfort, impossible to say. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“If you come to LA, I can take you to all the studios. You’d <em>love</em> it.” </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Sam Wilson’s always been a social butterfly. The lifeblood of every party. The guy that gets along with everyone. The funny, effortlessly cool guy. He thrives on meeting new people and cracking jokes. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>But really, if Sam could do anything when he gets home, it would just be to see you. And Riley, of course. He wants you to come to LA, go to a bar, hide in some corner, and just talk. Like you always do. Except, in civvies and heavily lubricated. He’d wait that excruciating month and a half before you’re back stateside too. He’d wait, not so much as think about alcohol if it meant the three of you could share that first cold one together. You and Riley, you’re <em>family</em>. The first he’s had in a long while. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He can’t help himself. “Will you? Come to LA?”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>You smile, so nice and pretty, big and easy, like the one you’d once reserved only for Riley. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>
    <em>2008.</em>
  </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Hands, softened with shea and two months R&amp;R, fisting the back of his shirt so tightly he fears the fabric might disintegrate. Feverish and needy, fingernails digging into his warm skin, leaving ardor shaped crescents in wake of their campaign to conquer his back. Scorched in the spots first touched, soothed by the soft sound of sliding skin. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Panting. Clenching. Burning. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Your eyes squeezed shut, tears pricking at the edges. Lashes, all 359 of them -- he’d counted -- fanning his cheeks. <em>Sweet wetness. Trembling fire. </em>Mouths, hot and urgent, moving against one another. Whiskey tongues, sliding together, worshipping every inch. Lips numb. Teeth clanging. Both chests heaving, humming with moans too gentle and too desperate. You’re so beautiful there, in a bar’s dark and dirty bathroom stall pressing chest, groin, thigh, and leg against him. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Gushing with it: joy, freedom, ecstasy. Overwhelmed by what he swallows from that heavenly spout: wrath, anguish, woe. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>You’re so beautiful he might die-- without question, fervently, for you. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p><em>2009.</em> </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>The world works in strange ways. People will pay a 1,000 USD for a mattress that perfectly shapes to the curves of their spines. Commercials demonstrate you can balance a wine glass and simultaneously jump like a giddy kid in a hotel room without any risk of stain-- and for good measure, in the event it does stain, some special formula ensures it’ll come right out. Such strange desires of men. Sam sighs into his pillow-- zero cost, no secret formula. Sand, his mattress covered in 1500 thread count Egyptian cotton; rock, his feather pillow that corrects his posture; a heavy coat of dry heat, his comforting New Zealand sheep wool blanket. Riley snores soundly beside, drool dribbling from the right corner of his mouth, chest spluttering in his exhales-- his white noise machine. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He’s never been more comfortable. And in strange ways, he’s glad to be back, just starting his second tour at twenty-seven now, another successful Falcon mission recorded with the capture of Khalid Khandil. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Sam’s almost disgusted with himself. He’s so stupidly content to be there, in the middle of the Afghani desert, sleeping on the ground. As if it’s not a fucking war. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Well, as the world turns. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p><strong><em>Do you ever think it’ll be over?</em></strong> you’ll ask one night, a whisper on his lips as soft as the dripping beside you. Never defined, never talked about, but most nights, when sleep evades you, you’ll slip from the barracks to the empty showers. And you’ll sigh in pleasure in time with the echoing splash of leaky faucets.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>And Sam has to bite his lips from saying the words ‘God, I hope not’ into your neck. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Stateside, he has a joke of a life. The year in between tours was almost unbearable. He’s supposed to call that land home? It feels more foreign to him now than Afghanistan. A place where people create mattresses with different settings on two sides for maximum comfort. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Strangers see him in uniform and either say <em>‘thank you for your service’</em>-- which always feels hollow-- or looking like they want to spit on him. Suffocating. He could only breathe the three times you visited him in Los Angeles and the five times he came to Virginia for you. Only felt comfortable there with his face in your thighs, heart and breast in his hand, lips in his teeth. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Here, he has structure. Purpose. Brotherhood. <em>You</em>. In war, he’s important. He’s helping people, not in any misguided, easily skewed fight for freedom and self-righteousness. He’s actually helping people.<em> ‘These Things We Do, That Others May Live’.</em> It’s what PJs do. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>In Afghanistan, he gets to <em>fucking fly</em>. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>In the US, his wings are clipped and everything feels so dull in comparison. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p><strong><em>Eventually, it has to</em></strong>, he’ll murmur back to spare you from his terrible thoughts. You’re so soft and sweet under him, and Sam knows just how much this war tears you apart. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>The guilt that plagues you because not everyone can be saved, but everyone <em>should</em> be. You’ve said before that the PJ credo implies death yourself. ‘That <em>Others</em> May Live’. But you’re alive and so many have died beneath your palms despite best efforts. Those trained fingers that sometimes feel useless apart from bringing Sam to bliss.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>If you knew how he truly felt, how even if he’s a good man he harbors such selfish thoughts, it would only hurt you more. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>So he keeps it to himself and kisses your worries away. Soft pecks at your eyes that never cry but are always on the brink; the tip of your nose that’s become immune to the overwhelming metallic scent of blood; the crease between your brows that screw together in torment; lips, that despite all of the above, smile for Riley and for him. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He’ll hold you so tenderly with strong steady hands, that it’s easy to forget the two of you are pressed together in a shower stall. You seem to have a habit of getting into compromising positions in bathrooms with Sam. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>A soft moan of appreciation escapes your lips, just to see that charming gap-tooth grin it draws from him. A taste of his light. So wanting, so desperate for that warm glow that emanates from Sam Wilson, you peel the shirt from his back sticky with sweat. Fingers scrambling to run across the smooth, hot skin there, chasing that tranquil day at the beach that is him even in the middle of a goddamned war. Greedy hands draw silken lines down the length of Sam’s spine, smiling in his mouth at his shuddering. How he leans into your touch reflexively. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>You’re drawn tight against him, his arms snaking around the base of your back, your hips flush against his, heels digging into his hamstrings. So close you become almost indistinguishable from him, simply a heap of warm skin and desert camo bracing the shower walls. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>A single kiss, languid and saccharine, suddenly turned quick. Sam is urgent in unfastening your top, splaying it open to lay you bare and panting before him. Each snap undone, a breath more labored. Your own hands, fumbling for the belt at his waist, mourning the loss of kissed raw lips against you. Hurried, as if at any moment one of you will perish. And the other, having tasted a body so divine, would simply crumble into dust-- there could never be another that they craved the same. Disappear forever in this desert, to perhaps be stamped down by another set of lovers’ boots. Here, in the sand soaked with your blood, Sam’s sweat, Riley’s tears</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>A vow is taken in the sighs of pleasure quieted by amorous mouths. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>If this war ever ends-- and he assured you that it will eventually-- you’ll tell Sam Wilson you love him. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>
    <em>2010.</em>
  </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He’d wished for this, hadn’t he? </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>To live in <em>War</em>. This ungodly, disorienting flurry of chaos that feigns a sense of order. Mayhem, no matter how many hours ripping apart his muscles to put them back in place in accordance with military regulation, how much firepower there is to decimate enemies. A messy, merciless machine, endless. Running on the energy expelled from eating-- young men chewed up and spat out, shoved back into the hungry mouth, and chewed and spat again. And again. An emulsified puddle of blood and sweat leaking from the bottom.  </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>This, is war. Not fucking in the showers, watching the sunset while playing cards, and trading MREs like it’s elementary school. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Structure. Purpose. Brotherhood -- all of the things Sam craved. It all means jack shit once someone steps on an IED, the distinct crisp sound of AKs firing off, or staring an RPG straight in the eye. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Sam can’t stop looking at the way the blood squeezes through his shaking fingers. Thick and scarlet and slippery, bubbling through the cracks, seeping into the lines of his skin. Unyielding to Sam’s hands desperately clasping at the ripped flesh, trying and failing to apply pressure to the wound. No matter how much pressure he applies, the blood persists. Gushing, oozing, turning black under his palms. Because it’s <em>everywhere</em> and he only has two hands. Why did God make man with only two hands? Why?</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>
    <strong>
      <em>Come on, man!</em>
    </strong>
  </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>It’s a pathetic sound, the way it rips from his throat, raw and pleading. His arms, trembling so hard they shake the body beneath him too. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Sam removes one hand to pop a yellow smoke outside of the ditch he’d pulled them into, using his teeth to pull the pin from the canister. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He’s whimpering, choking down the sobs he so desperately wants to let out, communicating in broken sentences through the radio. Deaf to the return chatter. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>His eyes refuse to leave his bloodstained hands when the Pave Hawk is hovering above, his team of six fast-roping down, quick and methodical in employing care under fire protocol. Four of them stationing themselves at a pole just outside of the ditch, laying suppressing fire. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>You’re there, he can feel you rushing forward with your pack already slung over and onto the ground at their sides. But Sam won’t look at you, <em>can’t</em>-- if he sees your face, he’ll lose it. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Moving, but nothing feels like it’s by your own volition. Rather, muscle memory. Flipping up your NVG, your eyes flit over the scene fast, thinking, but not feeling. And somehow, you’re thankful you’re numb at the sight. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>You’ve never seen it quite so... he doesn’t look <em>human. </em></p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>It was just supposed to be a standard op. A marine stepped on an IED, and no one had metal detectors so the normal PJ unit couldn’t land. They were supposed to fly in and out, barely even touch the ground. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>And it all got fucked. How had it gotten so fucked? </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Helpless. Nothing he could do. Like he was up there just to watch. Squint in the dark night for a body barreling towards the ground. So much like your first flight test. That sickness churning his gut. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>
    <em>Sam. Sam. </em>
    <strong>
      <em>Sam!</em>
    </strong>
    
  </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>His eyes flit to meet yours, wide and white in the dark and just can’t bear it. He careens over to the side, retching this morning’s powdered eggs ugly and loud. Emptied, body too spent, the sobs finally overtake him. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Quickly, you cut open his top, pulling the tattered fabric from where it tangled up with his body. Your hands take up the spot where Sam’s once pressed, pulling out combat gauze with your teeth. Desperately packing until you run out of gauze. It does nothing. The white is quickly stained so red that it just resembles more mutilated strings of flesh. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p><em>“Okay,”</em> you breathe, but it does nothing to return the oxygen to your lungs, <em>“okay we need to stabilize the wound, tourniquets”</em>-- the wound, he’s more wound than whole-- <em>“and I need someone on chest compressions.”</em></p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>You’re met with stares. Seven red-rimmed eyes, just staring as the very fluid of his life drains from him, body going cold under your hands warm, soaked in his blood. The only thing holding him, all mangled chunks of burnt tissue, together is you. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>
    <em>“But-”</em>
  </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>
    <em>
      <strong>“But what?”</strong>
    </em>
    
  </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>But, it was an RPG. So what? We’re fucking PJs, aren’t we? But, he’s lost too much blood. We’ll do a transfusion. But, he’s dead. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>
    <strong>
      <em>“Just do it!”</em>
    </strong>
  </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>No one has the heart to stop you.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>You work over Riley’s corpse for the entire ride to the hospital. They have to rip you from him on arrival. Because he’s dead. And you’ve just spent an hour elbow deep in a mess of blood and guts that feel like your own, exhausting yourself-- keeping nothing alive but your own sanity. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Riley’s a pair of boots, an M16, a helmet, and two shiny dog tags clenched in your fists.  </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>That’s it. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>The rest of him was put back together as best they could, shoved in a pine box shrouded in stars and stripes, and sent off to Georgia. He’ll be received by his parents, two little brothers, three nieces, and his dog. They’ll write about him in the paper, a hero he’ll be called-- when really, he was a dumbass that got dinked by a rocket. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He’d enjoy the fame in your small town. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Idiot. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p><em>Dropped on his head as a baby</em>. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>As you squeeze the dog tags hanging from his M16, so do you squeeze a tear from your eye. A warm thing running down your left cheek that feels just like Riley’s blood in your palm. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Sam’s behind you, head bowed low, maroon beret in his hands. The sheer number of times he’s said sorry, some blubbery, some frustrated, some murmured in your hair, some screamed at you.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>You’re both raw. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Hands scrubbed with soap, but stained Riley red.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Those showers have been tainted now with the fresh memory of pink streams circling the drain. Where once you found yourself lost in lust, now, in misery. Riley in your hands disappearing into the pipes, into nothing forever. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“My tour’s up in three months,” Sam watches you carefully as you release the silver tags imprinted with Riley’s information. You stand and face him, wiping away that traitorous tear. “I’m going to leave active duty.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>When he was twenty, and the world was bleeding fresh scarlet, he’d hardly imagined he’d be retiring at thirty. But twenty seems so far now, just as the aftermath of 9/11. Now, the blood has caked into a mountain of pain, dried brown. Revenge, and then some. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He enlisted for patriotism, duty, selflessness. He stayed for you and Riley, <em>for flying</em>. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He can’t stay anymore-- can’t see you die too.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>"You’re retiring?” your cloudy stare, brows pulled together, eat at him, “Okay.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Okay. Sam never tried to guess what you’d say, but <em>‘okay’</em> somehow seems like the only thing that would ever make sense on your lips. So soft and simple. <em>You.</em> Always supportive, always sure. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>You nod with a gentle smile, and while he doesn’t know where you’re headed-- somewhere that’s not Riley’s makeshift shrine-- Sam trails closely behind. Partially because he has more to say, but mostly because he’s bound to you now. His chest is tethered to yours, feet instinctively falling in line. He heels, like a dog. For you. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>The barracks are empty for chow again. Neither of you are hungry. Meals are different without Riley.  </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>So familiar, the two of you sitting side by side on the ground, knees bent, forearms resting on them, thighs brushing. Alone together. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Sam has ocean eyes. Warm brown eyes that look like the ocean. They’re still on you but they <em>move</em>. You’ve never noticed. How they swell and glimmer, so constant yet always in motion-- pure in how he allows himself to live so freely. Going with whatever flow his heart takes him: dropping out of college and enlisting; punching ignorant airmen; and giggling like a girl at the feeling of flying. Making promises you both know he has no control over. Kissing you in a bar because he can’t take the longing for a second more. Leaving the Air Force because it’s getting in the way of his light. Even if it means giving up flying. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Sam slips his hand in yours, so warm and soft, his squeeze, a plea. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>
    <strong>“Come with me.”</strong>
  </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>You’ve never met a person who <em>lives </em>like him. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>You laugh, fondly. Sam Wilson is so earnest in almost everything he does. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Can’t.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>So tempting. You remember now, how close those words once were to falling from your tongue.<em> I love you</em>. It seems pointless to say now, he’s leaving, you’re staying. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Come on, don’t be a martyr.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p><em>Like Riley</em>, he says without ever needing to flex his vocal chords that way. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Morbid as it may be, you’d be glad to die like Riley. He always believed in the cause more than either of you. He was dumb and goofy, but he truly believed in it. <em>All of it</em>. You’ve never been so bound by an unearthly force like that-- religion, ideology, patriotism. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p><em>Must be nice,</em> Riley mused, not having to answer to God. No, it really isn’t. It’s... lonely. You want to try your hand at it now. Might do you some good. You’re looking at another two years, or whenever your tour is up, alone now. Why not fuck around and find some higher power? God, the PJ creed, macaroni and chili MREs. You’ll figure it out. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Eventually, it has to end. Right?” It’s his own words. You<em> knew</em> he never believed them. And neither do you now, really. “So I’ll see you then.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Or in a pine box. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Ocean eyes are wet with his sorrow. You are so lovely.<em> Love.</em> He loves you. He thinks he might’ve loved you from the moment he first heard your velvet voice. <em>Fuck off</em>. So lovely. Sam kisses you, and the waves have come to drag you out to sea. If he could, he’d beg you to come home in his riptide. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Wherever that is. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>
    <em>2012.</em>
  </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>A Goliath building with tall glass windows that turn sunbeams into rainbows with rows upon rows of fresh tulips surrounding. Brilliant yellows and oranges-- like poppy field sunsets in Afghanistan. In the center of the<em> free </em>world. So much meaning there now behind what it means to fight for freedom. No place knows it quite like this house of warriors. This is a place of healing. Of mending brains put in a blender, frozen in some eagle-shaped mold, and then thawed out with guns in their hands and a burning vendetta to satisfy. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Sam Wilson is thirty-one now and remains a man of routine. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He wakes to darkness. Unfolds himself from the tight ball he’d curled into at some point. On the floor. Again. Sam gives himself just five minutes to lay blinking at white walls painted 5 am blue, bleary-eyed birds just starting up their morning songs. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>And then he’s up. His teeth are brushed, sneakers laced up, keys thrown into the pocket of his shorts. Sam runs along the Potomac with the familiar soft pink aura of dawn crawling along the horizon. Around the Washington Monument, past the Lincoln Memorial, down Pennsylvania Ave.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He feels so small among those giant monoliths of the land of the free. Not purple mountain majesties, but the marble Hill. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Sometimes, he feels you and Riley running beside him, like all those years ago bright and early for 6 A.M. PT-- wearing ankle-high socks, grey t-shirts with white wings splayed across the chest and those little navy shorts Riley complained crushed his balls. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p><em>God</em>, he misses Riley. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He misses you too. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>In college, Sam was a philosophy major of all things. He studied questions of human nature while picking up ‘cerebral chicks’. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>A decade later, the questions he once pushed away have all come up again. It all seems so important now. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>When he closes his eyes he sees your smile, yes, but he sees fire and smoke too. Like the rubble of the Twin Towers, his memories of war are shrouded in destruction.  </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Sartre said, <em><strong>Once you hear the details of victory, it is hard to distinguish it from defeat</strong></em>.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>So much cost, tangible, and not. Cities riddled with bullet holes and missile craters, conquered and hailed as a successful operation so long as it forces the Taliban back. Beautiful landscapes marred with IEDs and shrapnel which will make the Americans wish they never step foot in Afghanistan. Invisible things too, like a mass grave of men, women, and children-- some military, some civilian. Glass shards of minds, not broken, but cracked. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Sam is <em>bleeding</em>. Veterans are bleeding. Everyone is bleeding. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>The puddle of blood and sweat at the bottom of that machine, fathomless. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He ends up in D.C., staring up at that Goliath building with the scent of fresh spring tulips in his nostrils-- Department of Veterans Affairs. He needs help and he needs <em>to</em> help. Post-traumatic stress disorder is such a big name, and he never fully understands his meeting. What he does know: sleeplessness, irritability, paranoia, numbness, waking nightmares. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Healing is a process, but Sam’s doing it now. Himself, through others. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Things are getting better. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He’ll never be completely whole, but the circle helps. <em>‘It’s a toss-up which addicts anonymous circle he’ll end up in’</em>, Riley joked. Sam laughs up at the sky, his dumbass friend was probably sporting a smug smirk wherever he is. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>This morning Sam is chipper, today is a good day. He smiles wide at the girl at the front desk; she’s pretty and shy and always tucks her hair behind her ear when he’s flirting. Sam snags a classic glazed from the box of free donuts from Astro and it hangs from his mouth as he goes about setting up for a meeting. Unfolding chairs, he arranges them in a comforting position. In a circle, everyone is equal-- no one is alone or an outsider. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>And then he waits with a welcoming smile as everyone filters in. Some are regulars and he’ll exchange ‘how are you’s. Some are new and uncomfortable so he gestures to an open chair and says ‘Welcome’ with that <em>beach day</em> grin. Soothing, calm, comforting. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Sam listens so well. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>For as much as he likes to talk, listening is sometimes better. He only speaks when he’s sure they’re done and comfortable, offering what has helped him best. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Adjusting to civilian life is hard. No one expects how hard it truly is, because it’s never talked about it. They’re supposed to push themselves to the extremes of human experience and then come back as if any of that was normal. As if they didn’t just come from a war, that <em>still</em> persists. Even if by a different name, in a different place, against a different group, it persists. And no one ever tells them how hard it is to just sit there, surrounded by friends and family where you’re supposed to be happiest, and act like it’s not burning you from the inside out. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>But it’s important to remember the good things too, he’ll tell them. When the dark shadow threatens to swallow them up whole, there is always light. It’s important to know that and make sure they stay separate. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Like Astro donuts and playing soul music all the time and showering without a dozen people next to you. And the freedom of getting to do whatever the hell they want. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Sam tells them if it makes them happy: <em>do it</em>. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“You’ve made quite the reputation for yourself, Sam Wilson.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He’s seeing you, looking just the same as the last. <em>With that smile, that’s only his now</em>-- nice and pretty, big and easy. You are beautiful, so beautiful Sam wonders how he’s survived so long without seeing it. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>His own smile falters when his ocean eyes travel from your face.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>You are exactly the same, except, you’re missing a few pieces. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Your left arm, which he expects to lead down to those calloused hands somehow impossibly soft, is cut off abruptly, cruelly, above the ghost of your elbow. The left hand, your dominant one, that he had known the comforting feel of on his shoulder, burning through the cloth of his uniform, <em>gone</em>. The hand that breathlessly trailed down his torso, tickling and seducing, leaving goosebumps in its wake, <em>missing</em>. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He’ll ask another time. You’ll tell him of more casualties of war, this one visible, and of others invisible. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>But for now, he’s rushing at you, and it’s still not fast enough to quiet his screaming heart. He grabs you, doesn’t care if there are still people lingering from the end of the meeting, and <em>really</em> kisses you. And your right hand still finds its way to his torso. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p><strong><em>I love you,</em></strong> breathless. It was never pointless to say. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>No, the war is not over, maybe not even eventually, but you’re here in D.C. wrapped in his waves, <em>alive.</em> </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He’ll never be completely whole, but you get him damn near close to it. </p>
</div>
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